Few batsmen were clean bowled, but many were run out and still more caught. Now and then, however, Death found his way to the wicket after a long innings, and sometimes an old man who had long defied the hungry field went down to the Grey Bowler himself. If a child came in, Croup and Scarlet Fever, and Whooping-Cough and Measles crept up to the wicket. Diphtheria was a deadly customer to the children, and at such times Death made an Englishman feel angry, for he bowled harder at the little ones than their stouter elders. But it has been pretty generally admitted, I believe, that Death, whatever else he may be, is no sportsman.
Despite their claws and fangs, their million eyes and million hands, the red fielders and the black missed a good few chances, whereat Death grinned. His average never troubled him; he knew it must come out well enough in the long run. Often a batsman profited not a little when thus let off, and many an innings was a treat to watch in its patience and skill, while others, on the contrary—most of them, in fact—wearied the spectator by their feebleness. Sometimes a ghostly roar greeted the fall of a wicket; usually great indifference marked the event; not seldom the onlookers manifested absolute relief.
Full of monstrous surprises is this game. The weakling defies Death for over after over, and gets the ball past all the claws and long arms to the boundary; the stout and brawny giant, who looks good for a century, tumbles pitifully into the first trap, and puts up a ball weakly to Rheumatic Fever or Pneumonia, as though he had forgotten that such fielders existed for him.
The Recording Angels suffered me to glance over some score-sheets, and I found them very interesting and astonishing reading; for in the Game of Life, unlike most games, it is not the spectator who can best judge of a man’s innings. It needs a recorder possessed of power more than human to score correctly. I found, for instance, that not a few batsmen who had played a very showy innings and kept up their wickets well, and afforded the crowd plenty of entertainment, had in reality added little or nothing to the Score of the World. Of course, in the Game of Life every ball counts; but the peculiarity of it is that a man may put on runs against himself. Every stroke is recorded in one of the score-books. There are two, but these never tally.
And then, in the spirit still, I found that my turn had come, and the great circle of grey spectators stretched round me and I walked forth alone to play my innings. Now the aspect of affairs was mightily changed for me. The fielders in their liveries of blood or ebony had all quite vanished away; Death himself had dwindled into a mere remote shadow; and as the ball came, it rolled so feebly and so weakly that I laughed and smote it, and marvelled that such bowling had ever proved difficult to anybody. I performed with confidence; I hit hard; I surprised myself and seemed to be playing a glorious game; but no applause reached me; the grey ghosts all had their backs turned; for many a time had they seen great innings played; and mine offered no shadow of interest to anybody but myself. Presently Death bowled a little straighter; but now I had got a good sight of the ball, and it seemed as big as a balloon, and I felt I could do what I liked with it. Suddenly, however, a delivery broke in, as I tried to cut it, and out of the invisible there started a livid monster, and stretched a huge hand that darkened all the sky. My heart grew cold, and my head sank between my shoulders, and I glared at the loathsome thing thus suddenly loosed upon me in my secure hour. For a moment the onlookers were interested; then a murmur like the wind in a winter wood ran amongst them, for the ball was dropped, and the hideous fielder again vanished. I had come back to my innings by a short cut, and, settling down once more, I played with a caution new to me, for I could never again forget the invisible terror waiting so close.
But this Game of Life grows harder and harder as a man keeps up his wicket. The bowling, so easy at first, increases in difficulty. To get the ball away is more and more arduous; the light grows bad so quickly; and a man is often hit by the ball towards the end and robbed of his nerve and courage. Those deathly charnel things in the field, too, creep nearer and nearer at the finish, and when once a man sees them waiting—waiting, watching, whispering—he knows he can score no more, and that the duration of his innings is now but a question for Death and Time.
In the gathering darkness I stood, and the ball was lost, for I could neither time it nor even see it any more. And I knew that I was not playing with a straight bat. Then a murmur of many voices rang in my ear, a sound of waters flowing, and a sensation of such weariness as only the dying know. Finally, there came a ball of terrible swiftness to me, and it struck the shoulder of my feeble bat and went into the darkness. Then followed the sound of hands upon it and of remote laughter; so I knew that my innings was ended. I strained to see what fiend had caught me; I yearned to know my score and in which book it should be found. But I could do none of these things, for Death, whose voice I had never heard until now, cried: “How’s that, Umpire?” And Time answered, “Out!”
“ALAS! POOR GHOST”
IT is quite enough in this materialistic age that I say I am a ghost to make people turn up their noses at me; and when I add that I am a very second-rate spirit with the most mean spectral privileges, it will be readily gathered that my position in phantom circles is more or less a painful one.
To be plain, I am not an awe-inspiring apparition in any sense; I am not even passable; I never raised the hair or froze the blood of anybody; adults gaze unmoved at my most fearsome manifestations; children like me.